


Bluebirds and Cheshire Cats

by aurilly



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-24
Updated: 2013-06-28
Packaged: 2017-12-06 08:25:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/733575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurilly/pseuds/aurilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mary Margaret thought one night stands were supposed to be uncomplicated, forgettable and, by definition, a one-time-only deal. She’s learning this isn’t always the case.</p><p>(Basically, what might have happened had the one night stand developed into something more.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Storybrooke’s always been such a nice town. The kind of place where people smile as they pass one another on the street and the butcher always gives you a little something extra, just for having a nice face. Mary Margaret doesn’t understand how it’s suddenly gotten so _mean_. She doesn’t recognize her neighbors anymore. People she’s never even met are now scowling at her in the drug store. Her students have started talking back. And now there’s graffiti all over her car.

“Well, at least this explains why you never returned my calls,” a voice pipes up from behind her.

That maddeningly affected nonchalance could only belong to one person. 

Mary Margaret doesn’t turn around. She simply waits for Dr. Whale to sidle up beside her. They stand staring at her desecrated car, side by side, hands in their pockets, backs to the rest of the world.

“I’m sorry,” she apologizes, almost automatically, before she remembers, step by step, why she never called him back. ‘They’re called one night stands for a reason,’ Emma said weeks ago, when she had to forcibly keep Mary Margaret from returning Dr. Whale’s not spectacularly romantic voicemail. ‘Booty call’, Emma called it. ‘Absolutely not’, Emma decreed, yanking the phone from Mary Margaret’s fidgety hand. And then David had come around, and… well, the rest is now written for everyone to see.

With everything that’s happened… with David lying and Kathryn slapping her and the entire town shunning her… Mary Margaret wonders if perhaps Emma was wrong to stop her—if perhaps meaningless, satisfying sex with the town’s most eligible hound dog would have been easier and more socially acceptable than seeking out true love.

“You aren’t, you know,” Dr. Whale says.

“I’m not what?” 

“A tramp. You’d be a hell of a lot more fun if you were.”

The way he’s managed to turn a much-needed vote of confidence into an insult startles a laugh out of her—the first in what might only be a day, but which feels like a year. Suddenly, the situation’s ridiculousness becomes clear to her in a way it wasn’t before. He must have known she needed that.

“Hey!” she reprimands playfully, and almost punches him lightly on the shoulder, before she remembers people are probably looking. She ends up lifting her arm and then lowering it again, nonsensically.

He watches her aborted movements with bemusement, biting his lower lip, worrying it with his front teeth, and repressing a naughty smile. He winks at her. 

The memory of the last time she witnessed that precise combination of facial movements brings a hot blush to her cheeks. She remembers cool sheets and hot skin and the drunken haze with which she’d looked up at him as he…

He quirks an eyebrow at her, in a way that’s more arrogant than actually lewd. He knows what she’s thinking about, and it’s clear he’s reliving the same memory.

He looks extra handsome today, she thinks, with his blue eyes sparkling, and his well-tailored overcoat draping over his sexy doctor’s scrubs and dress shoes. He’s still in dire need of a haircut, but the overall effect reminds her of all those times she mooned over him while volunteering at the hospital, hoping he’d notice her, doodling hearts around his face with her mind’s crayon…

And then he did ask her out, and what a colossal disappointment _that_ turned out to be. The recollection of their awful date bars any return of those outdated crushy feelings and brings her back to the present, to reality. 

“You need a hand cleaning this off?” he asks. She’s somewhat surprised to see nothing in his face but an earnest offer of help. But then again, he _is_ a doctor, and his easy bedside manner is what had attracted her to him in the first place. 

“Thanks, but it’s probably easier to just leave it here and walk,” she says.

“Want some company?”

The offer is simple, uncomplicated, and (she thinks), mostly innocent. But she finds herself shaking her head no, even though her heart wants to say yes to the only person other than Emma who’s been nice to her in days. 

“That’s probably not the best idea right now,” she says as warmly as she can, hoping he understands; he seems reasonably self-aware, and should realize that someone revolting at the label of ‘town tramp’ probably shouldn’t be seen walking home with the town letch. From the way he nods quietly to himself, she has the feeling he gets it. 

She sneaks a quick peek over his right shoulder, and yep, there are a couple of elderly Storybrooke matrons watching them with judgmental frowns on their faces. He glances at where she’s looking, too, and rolls his eyes. 

“They’re just jealous,” he whispers, and then playfully sticks his tongue out at her. Someone so full of himself shouldn’t be half this charming.

“How do you do that?” she asks, just as she did on that infamous night.

“Do what?”

“Make everything seem not that serious.”

“By never forgetting how stupid most things actually are.” Just before walking away, he pauses, and adds, “Buck up. This’ll blow over. You’ll see.”

*

The next morning, on her way to school, Mary Margaret passes her car where it’s still parked outside Granny’s.

The graffiti is gone. Tucked neatly under the windshield wiper is an old dry cleaning receipt, on the back of which is written a phone number in unexpectedly beautiful copper-plate handwriting, like something out of a centuries-old manuscript. Below the number are the words, _“Just in case you lost it the first time.”_

Mary Margaret laughs out loud even as her head shakes in disbelief at his presumption.


	2. Chapter 2

Mary Margaret may be in a hopeless predicament, but she tries to tell herself it could be a lot worse. Most people in jail awaiting trial for murder aren’t roommates with town sheriff. Therefore, most people don’t get access to books from home, their favorite hairbrush, and a daily delivery of muffins from Granny’s.

Creature comforts only go so far, though. What she needs more than breakfast is freedom. Emma means well, but the key Mary Margaret found under her mattress is currently looking like her best option.

Storybrooke doesn’t have a lot of crime (apart from the hideous one Mary Margaret’s here for), so the sheriff’s office has been quiet ever since her arrest. Which is why, when she hears a slight commotion in the hallway, Mary Margaret sits up, straining her ears to piece together who’s there and what’s going on. 

She’s surprised when Dr. Whale, in what looks like the tail end of a slick evasive move, comes bent over and half-jogging into the room, looking as though he’s just ducked under Emma’s arms and bum rushed his way in here. He quickly straightens, sauntering over to the jail cell like it’s no big deal.

Emma’s voice shouting, “Hey!” can be heard before she comes panting into the room. “You’re not supposed to be in here.”

“Calm down. I’m just saying hi.” He comes to stand almost nose-to-nose with the bars, but his hands stay in his pockets and his back is arrow straight. Wearing a smirk and a suit, he looks more like the nasty prosecutor come to gloat than a friend. There’s none of the bar-clutching, desperate zeal Mary Margaret’s seen on TV when people come to visit loved ones in prison. But then again, she isn’t a loved one, or even a friend, really. She’s just some girl he fucked once.

“Hi,” he says, as promised.

Emma looks past him at Mary Margaret. Her quirked left eyebrow silently asks, “Are you okay with this?” With two almost imperceptible nods, Mary Margaret answers yes.

“Five minutes,” Emma says aloud, hovering hesitantly for a second before retreating into her office (she leaves the door open, though, just in case). 

“What are you doing here?” Mary Margaret places her novel on the blanket beside her. She doesn’t want to stand up until she knows what he’s come for and which side he’s on. It’s one thing to have been understanding about the tramp thing; she can’t expect him to be as easygoing about murder and mutilation.

“As part of the investigation, I was asked to give a formal statement about the heart they found. About the conclusiveness of the lab results.”

“Oh.” Right. So _not_ on her side… She feels more let down than she ought to.

But then he shifts his weight so that a ray of sunlight coming in through the window shines on his face. His body language and voice may be dispassionate, but now she can see that his eyes are kind, and more importantly, they’re clear. She thinks back to yesterday, when David came by and had such trouble looking at her. Even when he did, there were so many warring thoughts clouding his gaze, so much doubt and embarrassment as he spoke to her. 

There’s none of that here, today, with Whale. He’s looking at her the way Emma looks at her: with resolute yet angry confidence.

“You aren’t, you know,” he says, in exactly the same nonchalant tone in which he uttered the same words over a week ago.

“I’m not what?” she asks again, in turn.

“A murderer. Or, at least, you’re not this murderer. I know the evidence says what it says, but if you were going to kill someone, I think you’d be more of a ‘pistols at dawn’ kind of killer. Something classy and involving a fair fight. Not…” The smoothness of his voice breaks a little at the sordidness of the details. “Not a ‘drag them out of their car, cut their heart out and bury it in a jewelry box in the woods’ kind of killer. You’re not that…”

“Sick?” she offers hopefully, when he falters in disgust—at the crime, not at her.

“I was going to say ‘inventive’, but yeah, ‘sick’ works, too.”

The compliment-slash-insult appears to be a trademark of his. She wonders what makes him do that, why he strives so relentlessly for ambivalence. It’s such a waste of energy, and given what she knows about his work schedule, he’s tired enough.

Having him here brings a pang of guilt as she remembers that evening by her car. The piece of paper with his phone number burned a hole in her coat pocket for days while she tried and failed to think of a witty and not-forward way to express her gratitude. 

Then she and Emma ran into him hitting hard on Ruby by the bus stop.

And it made sense: Mary Margaret has never been insecure about her own worth, but Ruby has always been adventurous, irreverent, and sexy—specific qualities Mary Margaret knows she doesn’t possess, and which Dr. Whale apparently goes for. She doesn’t blame him. Hell, Mary Margaret herself has a hard time not staring at Ruby sometimes. But still, however irrationally, the encounter made her feel like second best— _again_. And after everything with David, that was the last thing she needed. After that night, the paper with his number migrated from her pocket into the trash (it was still in her cell phone, though; she never lost it the first time).

Anyway, none of that matters now, she tells herself. She doesn’t care who he sleeps with, or wants to sleep with. With everything that’s happened, she’s simply grateful for the vote of confidence, no matter how hard he tries to cover it up with back-handed compliments and smug smirks.

So, belatedly, she says, “Thanks, by the way. For my car.” 

He shrugs. “It only took a few minutes.”

“It’s not about how long it took. It’s about—”

He cuts her off. “Really. It wasn’t a big deal.”

“It’s a big deal to me.” His detachment has hitherto been comforting, but something snaps inside her, and suddenly this act of his is starting to piss her off. She spent all that time angsting about how to thank him, and now he’s acting like he never even wanted her to. She stands up and moves towards the bars so that there’s less than a foot of air between their faces. “Stop…”

“Stop what?”

“That. Pretending you don’t care about anything. I know it isn’t true. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here right now.”

As soon as the words are out of her mouth, she knows she’s made a mistake, at least in terms of prolonging this visit, which is a shame, because apart from Emma, he appears to be the only person in town who truly believes her. He purses his lips and steps away from her, out of the light that’s been illuminating the kindness in his eyes.

“I don’t like having to make official statements about things I think are wrong. _That’s_ why I’m here now. So I can at least let you and Sheriff Swan—” He nods at Emma, who’s been pretending not to listen. “So I can let you know I think something fishy is going on. It isn’t personal. It’s principle.”

“Sure.”

“I’d better go. I hope you…” He shakes his head and the mask of bland boredom he usually wears settles over his features. “I hope justice is served for whatever happened to Mrs. Nolan.”

Before Mary Margaret can reply, he stomps over to Emma’s desk. “I’ll get out of your hair now, Ms. Swan.”

Emma looks between his face hovering over her and Mary Margaret’s steely half-pout at the other end of the room. “Uh, okay,” she says, obviously wishing she weren’t now in the middle of this tiff. “I’ll be in touch if we have any more questions about the lab results.”

“Good luck with everything,” he says with a wave to both of them as he leaves.

“What was that about?” Emma asks once he’s gone.

Mary Margaret shrugs, both as an honest response and as a way of shaking off her disappointment in how badly that went.

Emma bristles on her behalf. “Is he always that much of a jerk?”

Mary Margaret thinks for a minute, thinks back to all those hazy, almost identical volunteer shifts during which he sometimes brought her coffee or winked cheerfully at her through too-tired eyes or pretended not to listen to the stories she read to patients. She remembers pancakes in the morning and the funny note attached to the flower delivery. But she also remembers the way he met giddy babbling about her hopes and dreams with boredom and the ogling of someone else’s ass, and how he followed that up with an arrogant apology—her first experience with his double-edged style, she now realizes—a few days later. 

“He isn’t always a jerk,” she finally answers. “But often.”

“And _he’s_ the one who cleaned the writing off your car?”

“The second time. David did the first one.”

“You never told me that.”

“There’s been a lot going on. It didn’t come up.”

“Huh.” 

“He believes me, though,” Mary Margaret says hopefully. “That’s something, right?”

Emma frowns. “Unfortunately, not enough. He still had to sign the lab report. But don’t worry. I won’t stop until we find out the truth.”

Mary Margaret tucks her legs underneath her and hides her face behind the book she knows she’ll only pretend to read. She counts the hours until she can get out of here.


	3. Chapter 3

Mary Margaret measures out flour for a cake she’s baking while Emma draws up a list of invitees. It’s barely been ten hours since Mary Margaret was released from custody; she’s still trying to remember what her life was like before it crashed… and before David. Maybe if she can remember, she can figure out how she wants things to be going forward. The only problem is that she literally _can’t_ remember. Other than Emma moving in a few months ago, everything seems so hazy. She can’t decide if this is a hint that perhaps she needs to do a whole lot more life restructuring than she first imagined, or if she needs to see Dr. Hopper.

A party isn’t the most conducive activity for the kind of reflection she clearly needs to do, but Emma’s insisting that they celebrate. And after everything Emma’s done for her, Mary Margaret can hardly say no.

“So,” Emma says, “who am I missing? I’ve got Archie and Leroy and Ruby and Granny and Henry and—”

Mary Margaret licks batter off the wooden spoon. She’s still savoring the smooth taste in her mouth when she adds, “And Dr. Whale.” 

Emma takes Mary Margaret’s inappropriately sensuous intonation the wrong way and looks up, startled. “Dr. Whale?”

“Sorry. That was the chocolate talking. But yes, invite him.”

“Why?” Emma’s eyes narrow in suspicion.

“He’s the only person who came to visit me in jail.”

Neither of them mentions the fact that David came, too. People who thought she was guilty don’t count.

“If I remember correctly, he wasn’t the world’s most polite visitor,” Emma rightly points out. 

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Whatever makes you happy.” Emma’s wan smile says she’s too tired to pry, and that if given a choice, she’ll take Dr. Whale over more David drama. She picks up the pen and is about to start writing when she stops to ask, “What’s his name? It feels weird to write ‘Dr. Whale’.”

“Andrew? Anthony? I’m not actually sure.” The one thing Mary Margaret’s sure of is the fact that she’s gone red to the tips of her ears.

Emma gets caught between a giggle and a gasp, and ends up hiccuping. “You don’t know his first name? What did you call him when you two… you know? I mean, you can’t have called him ‘Dr. Whale’.”

“I didn’t… call him?” Mary Margaret can’t believe she’s having this conversation.

“Yikes. That bad, huh?”

“No, he was surprisingly—”

“On second thought, maybe I don’t want to know.”

“Probably not.”

*

The party is debilitatingly awkward.

One by one, the guests arrive, with nervous hugs and hesitant smiles that don’t _quite_ reach their eyes. Some come with gifts (Archie, always a sweetheart, brings her a new umbrella), while others contribute to the buffet arranged along the kitchen counter (Leroy makes a mean guacamole, as it turns out). Everyone here is a friend, or at least they used to be and probably would like to be again, but they’re probably experiencing a bit of whiplash, just as Mary Margaret herself is. She can’t really blame them: innocent schoolmarm to tramp to psycho killer to maligned innocent… It’s a lot to process.

Henry actually brings a card from the class that says, ‘We’re so glad you didn’t kill Mrs. Nolan,’ which… wow.

Slowly, Mary Margaret finds herself fading into the background of her own party, more comfortable watching everyone else enjoy themselves than trying to pretend she’s having a great time. Even though she’s a wallflower, she’s glad Emma suggested this; the hum and bustle are at least keeping her hands occupied and her mind distracted from the fears that otherwise would leave her a sobbing wreck right now.

Emma seems to sense her discomfort, and takes on the burden of keeping the festivities going. Dr. Whale slips in late, after his shift is over, with a coffee in hand and deep bags under his eyes. He has yet to actually speak to Mary Margaret, but after quickly assessing the situation, he seems to assign himself a share of Emma’s party responsibility—amusing the guys with silly golf stories and stupid boy humor. He puts on a good show, but from the way his body hunches forward and his face goes slack when he thinks no one’s looking, Mary Margaret can tell that he’s beat. 

Then David shows up at the door. Mary Margaret’s heart doesn’t stop so much as it falls. She’s heard that the opposite of love is not hatred, but indifference. Right now she feels nothing but exhaustion; she wonders what that’s the opposite of. 

For a second, she fears there will be a scene, but Dr. Whale smoothly distracts everyone by starting in on another anecdote just as Emma, who, yet again, raises the bar on what it means to be the world’s best roommate, gently but firmly sends David away with Henry in tow. 

As soon as the door shuts behind him, Mary Margaret digests the knowledge that she now feels infinitely more relief at David’s absence than happiness in his presence. If that isn’t a sign of something being over, she isn’t sure what is.

Mr. Gold, whom no one invited, finally stops lurking creepily in the corner, and instead begins speaking creepily to Emma. Mary Margaret wants to step in and save her friend just as she has just been saved, but…

“Did you try my peach cobbler?”

Mary Margaret spins around. Dr. Whale (she may have learned his first name, but it’ll take awhile before she starts thinking of him as anything but ‘Dr. Whale’) certainly has a way of starting conversations with her unsuspecting back.

“It was excellent,” she says, forcing a teasing demeanor that, as the seconds go by, slowly eases into something real. “So good that I know you didn’t make it.”

“What?” He places his hand on his heart, as though wounded. The twinkle in his eye suggests otherwise.

“I used to read to Mr. Monroe when he was in the hospital,” Mary Margaret explains. “His wife brought me a peach cobbler every week as thanks. Now that he’s better, I have a feeling she’s started making them for his doctor, too.”

He nods, as sheepishly as she thinks he can (it isn’t much), but they’re both thinking less about Mrs. Monroe and more about how their last interaction ended. It was charged enough that Mary Margaret can actually look at him without blushing; she has a new memory that doesn’t _quite_ supplant the previous ones (because, really, come on), but at least it provides variety, and an example in which she didn’t take his questionable behavior lying down.

“So,” he says, seeing that this is his move to make. “I was a dick.”

“To which instance are you referring?”

“I apologized for the date weeks ago. Today I’m apologizing for being a jerk at the sheriff’s office. What can I do to make it up to you?” His hands are in his pockets and he’s rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, just like an eager little boy. He seems to really mean it.

She weighs his words for a minute, hoping he’s sweating while she makes him wait (probably not). Finally, she acquiesces, because it’s not like she can actually think of anything she wants from him, and she doesn’t have the energy to be angry. She’s just wanted him to apologize, on principle. “Nothing. Apology accepted.”

“I was right though, wasn’t I?” he says, having taken the newly cleared air as permission to go back to his insufferable smugness. “I knew you didn’t do it.”

“You were right.”

He grows serious, and Mary Margaret’s glad to see that _something_ can temper his flippancy. “Whoever did this made a fool of me, too,” he whispers angrily. “They hacked into _my_ hospital’s databases and forced _me_ to submit written testimony against you. Just because Mrs. Nolan turned up alive doesn’t make it okay.” 

He’s so angry you’d think _he_ was the one who was framed, who’s been sitting in a jail cell for days. She ought to find it obnoxious, but Mary Margaret can tell this is just his bizarre way of making her feel less alone, of sympathizing with what was done to her. He’s the only person (other than Henry and his guileless, tactless, well-meant card) who’s had the courage to broach the uncomfortable subject, the reason they’re all here tonight. Everyone else has skirted around the issue, treating this as some kind of un-birthday party. 

“No, it doesn’t make it okay.” She briefly touches his hand, feels him twitch in surprise… or something. “Thanks, Dr. Whale.”

She can tell the gesture is a little too real for him, because he takes a step back, out of her reach, and chuckles.

“You don’t know my name, do you?”

She’s never been more grateful for Emma’s detective skills, because they’re what have made her able to snarkily reply, “You’ve only ever introduced yourself to me as ‘Dr. Whale’. I didn’t want to be rude and overly familiar, Andrew.”

With affected supplication underscored by something honest, he says, “Call me Andy.”

“I prefer Dr. Whale.”

“Ouch,” he says, physically wincing for dramatic effect, even as the corners of his mouth crinkle with amusement. “Should I call you Miss Blanchard, then?”

“Are you a fourth grader?” she asks archly.

“I’ve been told I act like one.”

“Aw, whoever said that was being mean. You strike me as more of an eighth grader.” This wins her a smile.

She’s pretty sure she’s got the measure of him by now, figured out his rhythms and little evasive techniques. It’s odd, really. She would never have imagined she could feel so comfortable around someone with whom she’s had ill-advised sex, with someone who is more than a little bit of a jerk. For all that she loves—loved—David, things with him were always so fraught. This, by contrast, is surprisingly easy. 

“You’ve got a cute place,” he says next, once they’ve stopped giggling.

“I’m thinking of moving,” she blurts out, surprising even herself. It isn’t something she’s articulated aloud before, but the truth that’s apparently jumping right from her unconscious into the open air is that Mary Margaret has been dreading the thought of having to spend the night—her first night—back here. Her home was violated as part of the frame-up; even with Emma around, she isn’t sure if she’ll ever feel safe in it again. Almost everything in her life that was once pure now feels dirty, tainted, treacherous: her apartment, her friendships, her relationship with David. 

Not Dr. Whale, though, she thinks as she watches Archie put a hand on his shoulder, ask a question about golf, and drag him away, back into the guys’ conversation before he has a chance to respond. Dr. Whale’s never pretended to be pure.

He lets himself be led away, but looks back to check on her, seeming to read the trauma behind her last remark.

She wanders over to where Emma’s standing, basking in her warm glow and trying to siphon off even a morsel of her strength. Emma puts her arm around Mary Margaret’s waist, and together they pretend to listen to yet another of Granny’s salty stories about her wild youth. (No wonder Ruby feels stifled in Storybrooke).

Slowly, the party begins to wind down. One by one, the guests pick up their empty casseroles and give her quick hugs goodbye. Emma’s working tonight; on her way out, she apologizes for leaving before the clean up, but Mary Margaret insists she doesn’t mind. Soon, she, Granny, Ruby, and Dr. Whale are the only ones left. Mary Margaret notes that Dr. Whale hasn’t tried to chat Ruby up even once tonight. Not that she’d care if he did, but still. It’s interesting. Perhaps he’s finally gotten the message. 

“I’m going to stick around and give Mary Margaret a hand with the cleanup,” he says when Ruby and Granny start reaching for their coats.

The ladies glance worriedly at Mary Margaret. Looking at her with identical expressions, it’s easy to see how they’re related.

“If he tries anything, I’ll shiv him,” Granny whispers on her way out. “I sharpen the knives at the diner every morning before dawn.”

“He’s harmless,” Mary Margaret laughs as she shows grandmother and granddaughter out. She wonders what they’d say if they knew, if they ever found out Mary Margaret is the one who’s already tried something with _him_ , and succeeded.

She turns back into the empty room where Dr. Whale’s standing with his hands in his pockets, looking at the mess like he now regrets his lapse into generosity. Mary Margaret kindly gives him an out. 

“You don’t have to stay. I’ll be fine.”

“No, I don’t have to stay,” he says, rolling up the sleeves of his dress shirt and settling himself at the sink. “Where do you keep your dish towels?”

Mary Margaret freezes for a minute, baffled, but then opens a drawer near the sink. He flashes her a sly grin when she slings a towel over his shoulder. It’s tired but still potent, and Mary Margaret finds herself scurrying away before she… she isn’t sure what.

“How’s Kathryn?” she asks once she’s safely on the other side of the room. “Emma said she was drugged the whole time? Kept in a dark room?”

“She’s good. Fluids back to normal, no internal damage. There’s nothing wrong with her that a few days of rest and hearty eating won’t cure. I was finishing her release forms just before I came here.”

“She’s out already?” Mary Margaret is shocked. Yet another way that this is so disconcertingly over, like it wasn’t earth-shattering, like it never even happened.

“Yeah, David picked her up and took her home.”

“Oh.”

He seems to realize what he just said, because he turns around to check on her. She doesn’t make eye contact. 

“Sorry,” Whale says.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for. Thanks for taking such good care of her.”

“That’s my job,” he says, but with a tone that makes it sound like the job isn’t done, like he’s still working.

“Why are you here?” she asks.

He shrugs. “You looked like you could use some company.”

“I told you I was fine.”

“Do you know how much time I spend listening to people try to convince me they’ll ‘be fine’? I know bullshit when I hear it.” Then, changing the subject before she can try to deny it or thank him or explain, he says, “How about some tunes?”

Mary Margaret takes the hint (she isn’t sure what she would have said had he let her respond). She hunts around for Emma’s iPod, and, after some hunting, picks an Ella Fitzgerald album. He nods in approval as the first chords come on, and together, they clean in companionable silence, interrupting it from time to time to exchange pleasantries about the town, about Mary Margaret’s students, about Whale’s patients. It’s just what she needs—nothing deep.

“I think that’s it,” he says an hour later as she dries the last of the pots he’s washed. 

“You look exhausted. When was the last time you slept?”

“Saying someone looks tired is just a polite way of saying they look like shit.”

“You don’t look like shit,” she says, taking in his unhealthy pallor, greasy hair, patchy stubble, and red-tinted eyes.

“You’re the worst liar I’ve ever met.” He plunges his hands into the dishtowel she’s still holding, and she pats them down, sort of holding hands through the fabric. 

Only now does it strike her that this is the first time they’ve been alone since _that_ time. He looks at her through heavy-lidded eyes, but it’s from tiredness, not want. At least, she thinks it is, and thinking is enough to keep the tension away, to give her the confidence to open up about one of the million things that have been bothering her.

“Can I ask you something before you go?” she asks.

“Sure. What?”

She drags him out onto the fire escape.

“What are you—”

Once outside, she pushes him against window, putting a finger to her lips to make it clear this is serious, not some insane attempt at seduction. “You know how you thought the lab results on the heart were fishy?” she whispers.

“Yeah…”

“When Graham died, what did you think?”

“The sheriff? He had a heart attack.”

“Is that your professional opinion or your personal one?”

He bites his thumb as he thinks, following her train of thought. “It’s rare for a perfectly healthy, thirty-year-old man to drop dead of a heart attack, but it isn’t unheard of, and there was no reason to think anything of it at the time. But yeah, having two implausible heart-related incidents over the course of a few months is definitely fishy. Do you think… do you think the person who set you up…?”

She nods.

“But who…?”

“Do you really need to ask?”

He pauses, and then slowly shakes his head no. 

“Just be on the look-out from now on, okay?”

“I will. I promise.” He notices her shivering in the late-night wind and wraps his arms around her so that her cheek is pressed against the top button of his shirt. It’s hard and cold and makes an indentation in her face. “Why are we outside?” he asks gently, trying to draw out whatever she’s been bottling up. “It’s freezing.”

“I don’t feel safe in there anymore,” she confesses, a follow-up to her comment earlier in the evening. She hasn’t cried since getting out, but now, oddly enough, it’s the hug and the warmth that set her off. She begins convulse, feeling the crying jag clenching her back before she feels the moisture on her face. Dr. Whale isn’t her first-choice as a witness to her breakdown (that would be Emma), but it seems like he’s what she’s getting. 

“What’s the matter?” he asks soothingly, in his best bedside manner.

“Someone got in and planted that knife in my floor,” she gasps, as the fears she ambiguously referenced earlier come pouring out in more detail. “What if there’s a microphone? What if the person still has a key? And what if he comes after us again?”

“He who?”

“The psycho who kidnapped me and tried to kill Emma...”

He pushes her away from him and stares. “What? What the hell are you talking about? When did this happen?”

And _crap_ , she wasn’t supposed to mention that to anyone.

The memory of that night is enough to make the sobs come out in earnest, which is lucky, in a way, because at least it provides an easy reason for why she can’t and won’t explain. Hopefully, he’ll forget she said anything at all.

“Shhh,” he says. “Shhhh, I’ve got you.” The words are comforting, but she can feel his chin hardening into a terrified grimace on the top of his head. She can’t see his face, but she’s pretty sure he’s asking himself how he ended up here, with an armful of hysterical, crying, former bedmate. It’s the sort of situation she’s pretty sure he makes a concerted effort to avoid.

To his credit, he doesn’t otherwise react. Just trundles her inside, walking her backwards while keeping her in his arms. He takes her upstairs, assuming her bed is the one in the loft. She’s in no state to correct him.

He unmakes the bed with one hand while cradling her with the other, and she can tell from the ‘doctor face’ he’s wearing that he’s done this a few times for work. 

“In you go,” he says mechanically, all but pushing her onto the mattress. In any other circumstance, she’d bristle, but there’s nothing lewd in his eyes as, one by one, he takes her shoes off and pulls the blankets over her.

He moves the blouses draped over Emma’s desk chair onto the dresser and sinks into the seat. Almost immediately, his head slumps and his eyes half close.

She isn’t sure what she expected here, but this wasn’t it. “What are you doing?” 

“Faithful night’s watch,” he murmurs, already half-asleep. It’s as though standing was the only thing keeping him awake all this time.

“You don’t have to—”

“Shhhhh… Can’t a guy sleep in peace?” The (mostly) pretended irritation in his voice doesn’t fool her; she knows what he’s doing. Through her tears, Mary Margaret almost laughs as she realizes he’s putting her to bed more because he’s tired than because she is.

It works, though. The ridiculousness of it all is enough to make her stop crying. Plus, he’s still here, so the fear of being left alone has abated somewhat. 

“What time do you need to get up?” she asks, reaching for the alarm clock.

“Shix.”

Mary Margaret watches his body hunch over in the chair as she sets a back-up alarm. He’s such a baby. He was like that the last time, too, passing out almost as soon as they reached the bedroom (their… activities… that night took place on the couch). 

This is different, though. For starters, they both have all their clothes on. And they’re both mostly sober.

“Come on.” She pulls him into the bed beside her. 

“Tomorrow,” he mumbles, words slurring, “tomorrow you’re gonna tell me about this psycho.”

“Mmmhmm.” Mary Margaret crosses every possible finger in hope that he won’t remember anything about that come morning.

She’s staring up at the ceiling when his arm slips across her thigh. An accompanying light snore is proof that he’s already out cold.

She isn’t at all tired, but she has stopped crying.


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning, Mary Margaret stumbles down the stairs, still half-asleep and muzzy-headed, trying to remember why she was upstairs to begin with. When she finds Emma sitting at the kitchen counter waiting for her, it all comes rushing back.

“Morning,” she says, with a slightly embarrassed glance.

Emma cocks an eyebrow. It’s a little scary how much she looks like David when she makes that face; Mary Margaret doesn’t know what to think of or make of that fact.

“’Morning’?” Emma repeats drily. “That’s all you’ve got for me?”

“Ummm...”

“I got home half an hour ago to find Dr. Whale in the living room, stumbling around looking for his jacket.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing. He was barely functional. Just kind of grunted at me and left. Clearly not a morning person. What happened here last night?”

“Nothing.”

Emma crosses her arms in disbelief. “Nothing.”

“Really, nothing. He helped me wash the dishes and then we fell asleep. That’s it. Look,” Mary Margaret says, pointing at her dress and tights. “I never even got undressed.”

The evidence seems to convince Emma. “Okay. But why _my_ bed?”

Mary Margaret doesn’t want to burden Emma by letting her know about her little breakdown, but she also doesn’t want to lie to her, so she keeps her story as close to the truth as possible. “Correcting him didn’t seem worth it at the time. I wasn’t feeling well, so he sort of… carried me.”

“He carried you to bed… and left all your clothes on?”

“Yeah…”

“This is Dr. Whale we’re talking about. The town letch.”

Mary Margaret nods. “I know. But it wasn’t like that. He was really sweet, actually. I mean, for him.”

Emma shakes her head in disbelief. “You two have the weirdest relationship.”

“I wouldn’t call it a _relationship_.”

“It might not be the kind you read about in Henry’s storybook, but it’s still a relationship. ”

It’s a point. Emma’s almost annoying good at making them.

*

The nuns at the school have told Mary Margaret to take all the time off she needs. It’s a kind gesture, but proves dull in practice. She paces around the apartment, picking up a book here, fixing a snack there, tidying a pile of papers in the corner, until Emma, who’s trying to nap after her night shift, asks her to please sit down and stop creaking the goddamn floorboards.

They leave together for a late lunch, going to the White Rabbit instead of Granny’s, for a change of pace. Lunch turns into drinks when Ashley and Ruby unexpectedly show up. The whole experience is surreal—being back—but it’s a relief to giggle and talk about Ashley’s wedding plans, to feel halfway normal.

When they finally pay their now-exorbitant tab, Emma announces that she’s working the night shift again. “But I’m actually not working,” she whispers conspiratorially while Ruby and Ashley are in the bathroom. “Mr. Gold’s coming to the office. We’re building a case against Regina. She shouldn’t have custody of Henry. Not after what she did to you.”

It’s a huge bombshell, a massive life-step for Emma. Mary Margaret is shocked, but proud of her.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” she asks.

“Thanks, but not really. It’ll go faster with just me and Gold.” Emma looks at her with worry. “You gonna be okay? How’s your… you said you weren’t feeling well last night, but you didn’t tell me what was wrong. Stomach ache? Flu?”

“I just feel off,” Mary Margaret answers evasively. She can’t be alone, she can’t. But the last thing she wants to do is let her stupid fears get in the way of Emma’s much more important project.

“Why don’t you stop by the hospital?” Emma says with a wink. “I’m sure everyone’s favorite doctor will find a minute to diagnose you.”

Mary Margaret wrinkles her nose and looks away. “He isn’t everyone’s favorite doctor. He’s the _only_ doctor.”

There’s no reason for her to go, and yet, a few minutes later, Mary Margaret finds herself hugging Emma goodbye in front of the hospital doors. She wanders the hospital’s quiet hallways and pokes her head into empty rooms.

“Have you seen Dr. Whale?” she finally asks one of the nurses when she’s finished checking all the usual spots.

“We all ganged up on him and forced him to go home early,” she replies. “He isn’t well.” 

This is a surprise. “Really? He didn’t say anything last—” She stops herself, glad her blush can’t be seen in the semi-dark hallway. “He was fine the last time I saw him. Yesterday.” 

“Of course he seemed fine. Typical man. Pretends everything’s hunky dory until he drops down dead.”

Mary Margaret now feels guilty, almost selfish. Because now that she’s thinking of it, he _wasn’t_ fine last night. He looked like crap, she remembers, and was only continuing to function through some insane force of will. He’d been looking after her (albeit grumpily) when he clearly needed looking after himself much more.

“You want me to send him a message?” the nurse asks.

“No, no. It wasn’t urgent. Thanks.”

She doesn’t know what she’d hoped to find at the hospital anyway, why she came here at all. She isn’t sick, at least not in any way he could have fixed. She expected him to be on shift, so it isn’t as though they could have spent any time together. She isn’t even sure what she would have said to him. For all their time spent together and odd relationship (as Emma calls it), she doesn’t actually know him that well. 

Mary Margaret shakes her head and starts on her dark, lonely way home. And then, of _course_ David comes out of the shadows, like he’s been following her, waiting to catch her alone. Because he probably has been.

He says everything she could possibly have wanted him to say. He apologizes for not believing in her. He asks her to let him make things right. He tells her he loves her. His words are so earnest. _He_ is so earnest, and she still loves him, she does, but it’s all so laughable and sad now, her love like an object that’s attached to her rather than a part of her. 

Mary Margaret wants to say yes to everything, to pretend that nothing ever happened, but it _did_ happen, so she can’t. She tells him as much. It hurts to do so, but it hurts more like ripping off a Band-Aid than like the original wound.

It turns out that sometimes love doesn’t conquer all, that letting love die can be a happier ending than holding on to it.

Actually, she’s pretty sure of this, because as soon as she walks away, she notices she’s holding her head a bit higher, and her mind is a little clearer. She finally knows what she wants to—what she ought to—do tonight.

She waits for David to get in his truck and drive out of sight, and then takes a turn, away from home. After a quick stop at the nice take-out place, she walks down Geneva Street, one of Storybrooke’s oldest and poshest.

She’s only been here once before, late at night, and pretty tipsy, so finding the right townhouse on the long block of identical ones is a challenge. It takes her a few aborted climbs up various stoops before she recognizes the black door, the red shutters. This townhouse has been divided into two apartments, one occupying the garden and parlour levels, and another occupying the two top floors. She rings the buzzer labeled ‘Whale’, and is surprised when she’s buzzed in without being questioned via the intercom first.

His apartment door is right by the main entrance, so it opens as soon as she enters the building. Dr. Whale’s head—hair _insane_ —peeks out of the doorway. She can see a little bit of him through the half-open door; he’s bare-chested, wearing nothing but socks and a pair of old gym shorts. 

“Um,” Mary Margaret says.

“You?” He looks flabbergasted to see her, and looks down at himself, almost embarrassed.

Suddenly (she thinks, at least) she gets it. His disheveled state of undress, the way he buzzed her in without asking for a name... She’s mortified, standing here, getting in the way of what is obviously… 

“Oh god, you’re expecting someone. I’m so sorry,” she stammers. She blindly turns to go, looking everywhere and nowhere in her agitation to get out, and ends up colliding into someone who has suddenly appeared behind her on the stoop. The impact is enough to trip her, and she falls to the ground, hands splayed.

She looks up to see Kevin, the pizza delivery guy, standing over her. 

Kevin offers her a hand, but she shakes her head no. She scrambles to her feet while they complete their perfectly innocent transaction.

“Thanks, man,” Whale says, slapping the money into Kevin’s hands and taking the large box. 

“Have a good night,” Kevin replies. “You, too, Miss Blanchard. Glad to see everything worked out.”

Kevin heads out and Mary Margaret and Whale are both left holding open doors at opposite ends the vestibule. 

Whale cocks his head to one side and purses his thin lips outward like a beak. After a minute of quiet study, he asks, “You wanna come in?”

“I…” She finally pulls herself together, drawing on some of that pep and confidence she had only a few minutes ago after finishing things once and for all with David. “I heard you weren’t feeling well so I brought you some chicken soup.” She holds up her plastic bag, and then nods at the pizza box in his hands. “But it looks like you already have dinner. So—”

She’s about to leave, but he leans into the hallway and grabs her wrist with his free hand. “Stay. Please.”

She’s pretty sure the word ‘please’ only exists on the periphery of his vocabulary, so its unexpected use here is enough to soften her feet and let him pull her inside. 

“I eat pizza almost every day. Chicken soup? Is a treat,” he explains as he closes the door behind her. “And you’re easier on the eyes than most of my delivery people.”

“Only most?” she teases, slowly relaxing.

He guffaws, but Mary Margaret can see why the nurses sent him home. He looks absolutely terrible, even worse than yesterday. His face is flushed and his cheeks are red. She notices the spikes sweat has made of his hair and the slight smell. Putting two and two together, she’s staggered.

“Did you… did you just go for a run?” she asks, incredulously.

“Yeah, it’s been awhile since I had a chance.”

“The nurses sent you home for a reason! To rest. Why can’t you just do that?”

He shrugs. “I’m fine.”

Mary Margaret reaches out to feel his forehead, following him with her hand even as he flinches back. It’s burning hot, from fever, not from exercise. She draws herself to her full height and assumes her best schoolteacher stance. “You called me on that last night. I wasn’t fine then, and you aren’t fine now. Take a shower, put some clothes on, and come eat your soup.”

He looks like he’s about to put up a fight, but the tiredness finally overwhelms him. He frowns and then says, “Yes, mom.”

“Where’s the kitchen? I’ll warm this up in the meanwhile.”

He takes her through the living room, which she remembers all too well. She’d heard about his place a long time ago: whispers around the hospital and around Granny’s. ‘Panty-dropper’, everyone called it. As she walks by the couch that was the scene of that previous night’s events, she remembers how true that is. This room is incredible—all high ceilings and well-chosen furniture. Masculine without being messy or cold. Expensive without being show-offish. 

After dropping her off in the kitchen, Whale disappears around a corner that she remembers leading downstairs to the bedroom and bathroom. As she watches the bowl of soup spin round and round in the microwave, she asks herself how she got here: warming food for a man she barely knows while he takes a shower.

The strange thing, though, she thinks as she glances back into the living room at the lamp that she hazily remembers having hung her bra on the last time, is that while she may not know a lot of trivia about him, she doesn’t think of him as a stranger. It isn’t everyone she allows to sleep in her apartment, for whom she brings dinner, whom she can scold for not taking care of themselves.

“Am I clean enough for you?” a voice asks, breaking her reverie. Now his hair is spiked with water, not sweat, and he’s clothed in a pair of scrubs and a tee-shirt.

“Don’t you want to wear something else when you’re off the clock?” she asks.

“Nah, they make you wear them for a reason. There’s nothing more comfortable.” He pauses, curiosity about her presence still causing his head to tilt when he looks at her. “You want a pair?”

She didn’t make a plan before coming here, didn’t plan on how long she wanted to stay. He wouldn’t offer if he didn’t mean it as an invitation, but she knows he’s also trying to figure out exactly what she’s looking for. Saying no either means she’s leaving soon or else looking for sex. Saying yes means staying over, probably in the platonic way he stayed over the night before. Oddly, he doesn’t seem to be pushing her in one direction or another; he’s simply wondering, leaving it up to her.

“Sure,” she finally decides. “But after we eat.”

“You got it.”

They carry everything they need into the dining room and he watches her cut her pizza with a fork and knife, in a way that Ruby has always teased her about. “It’s finger food, princess,” he says. “You’re supposed to pick it up.”

“I’m not being… princessy. I just like things to be neat.”

“So,” he asks, between slurps of soup. “How’d you find out I was sent home?”

“The nurses at the hospital told me.”

“What were you doing there?”

“To… I don’t know. I was just passing by. Thought I’d say hi. Nothing, really.”

“Oh. I figured you were coming by to talk about the guy who was trying to kill you and Emma.”

“No. Why…?”

“We agreed you’d tell me about it tonight, didn’t we? And now here we are.”

“No, _you_ said I’d tell you about it. I didn’t—”

“You said, ‘mmmhmmm’. I remember it distinctly. Now. Spill.”

He sees her hesitation, and lays a hand over hers, stilling her fork.

“You can trust me. Doctor-patient confidentiality and all.”

“We aren’t in the hospital.”

“This could be my private office.”

“This street isn’t zoned for commercial uses,” she quips, hoping the joke will put him off. 

It doesn’t.

He leans forward and cups her cheek, rubbing his thumb soothingly along her temple, down her cheek. Mary Margaret watches him as he stares at her eyes, glancing at her lips before resuming eye contact. It’s too much, more than enough to send a shiver running all the way down from his hand to her toes. 

It’s as if that was exactly his plan, because he grins his most smug, shit-eating-est grin. “See? Chills in a perfectly warm room. Definitely a fever. You’re sick. I’m a doctor. Talk.”

He’s insufferable and obnoxious and full of himself. “Not funny,” she says.

“Fine. Don’t tell me as a doctor. Tell me as a friend.”

“Since when have we been friends?” 

“Since always,” he says, almost confused as to why she’s asking. “What, you think I visit just anyone in prison? And do their dishes? And offer them my scrubs when they come over?”

He’s so earnest about it that she stops to think. He honestly doesn’t see how this might come as a shock to her, how his general dickishness might have given her the idea that he only barely cares about her.

His face is so open and trusting, and the murder case is closed anyway, so she decides to chance it. The whole story falls out, bit by bit, and only once she’s started telling it does she realize how traumatized she really was, how desperately she’s needed to talk about it. About what it was like to be dragged through the woods and tied to a chair and watch Emma be attacked and threatened with a gun. To feel helpless and scared and like nothing at all in the world would ever go your way again. 

Whale seems to share in her horror, his jaw twitching at every awful new detail, and quiet gurgles of horror escaping him. At least two minutes go by with his spoon forgotten halfway between his bowl and his mouth.

“What’s Emma doing to find him?” he finally asks.

“Nothing,” she says. “We have no idea where he went.”

“But you know where you were, don’t you? Where he lives. You can figure out who he is, maybe go back and catch him.”

Mary Margaret nods. “He wasn’t trying to hide who he was. He was too insane. He definitely thought he was the Mad Hatter, but he told Emma his name was Jefferson. But I don’t… I don’t want to go anywhere near there again.”

“He can’t just… continue to be out there, though. You have to do something.”

She shakes her head no, and her whole body shivers as backup agreement. “I’m not ready.”

He seems to get it, because he lets her off the hook, changes the subject, and they actually start having fun. He ought to be asleep, but even Mary Margaret’s sternest words can’t overcome his stubbornness, so they end up stuck at the dinner table for longer than she intended, just talking about anything as he tries to keep the subject away from his own exhaustion.

Later, they somehow strike a compromise: watching an old Woody Allen film (not Bridget Jones’s Diary, like she wanted, but at least not Die Hard like he wanted), drinking hot chocolate (not tea like she wanted, but at least not coffee like he wanted), and both wearing scrubs (one thing in which they are in perfect agreement). He sprawls out all over the couch, legs spread and arms embracing the tops of the cushions. Given what happened there before, Mary Margaret still feels a little awkward sitting on it with him, and instead curls herself into a little ball in one of the oversized armchairs. 

He looks so warm sitting there, only a couple of feet away. Warm and comfortable. But she knows if she sits with him, something… she doesn’t know. She still doesn’t know what she’s doing here or what her plan is, but for once, going with the flow and trying not to worry about it seems like the best approach. It’s clearly what he’s doing.

They grin at one another during the funny parts, and he seems to find the way she claps her hands when she’s nervous and hug her knees when she’s pleased hilarious, because he keeps glancing fondly over at her, like she’s a puppy he can’t quite believe is real. And he may be a little bit of an asshole regularly, but his sense of humour isn’t far from hers; he likes all the same developments and jokes she does—the nice ones, the puns.

He starts nodding off before the end of the film, and she waits until he’s pretty far gone before doing anything; by now, she’s learned that trying to scold him will only make him recalcitrant. So, instead, she watches him for twenty minutes, watches the cute way in which his head bobs and weaves and jerks up and down, and the way his eyelids flutter. It’s more interesting than the film, to be honest (not one of Woody’s best). By the time she bends over him and slips one of his arms around her neck to guide him to standing, he’s a puppet in her hands. 

“You staying?” he mumbles as she leads him downstairs and into bed. 

“Yes.”

His response is barely audible, and definitely not conscious. “Thanks.”

*

Mary Margaret dreams of running through a forest, a bow in her hand and a quiver of arrows slung over her shoulder (she has never practiced archery in her life, but it seems normal in the dream). There are no buildings around, but she hears a bell. At first she doesn’t notice it, but then the bell becomes more insistent, and also familiar. It’s distracting enough to make her start running towards it, but she can’t seem to locate the source.

The dream dissolves around her, and she finds herself groggily half-awake. She’s in a room that seems foreign at first, but once her eyes adapt to the sliver of bright morning sunshine peering in through the sides of the blinds, she recognizes it. There’s an arm draped around her waist, a knee shoved between her thighs, and wetness under her cheek. She peers one eye open to find herself face to face with a sleeping Whale, whose mouth hangs unglamorously wide, spittle oozing out. 

The faraway bell from her dream is still ringing, and now she knows what it is: the ringtone on her cell phone that she’s assigned to Emma. 

Mary Margaret disentangles her limbs as gently as she can. Behind her, Whale grunts and rolls into the spot she was just occupying. With a smile, Mary Margaret creeps upstairs to the kitchen where she left her purse.

“Hello?” she whispers.

“Are you okay?” Emma’s panicked voice is startlingly loud for first sound of the morning. 

“Yes, I’m fine. I’m so sorry, Emma. I should have given you a call, but—“

“You didn’t come home last night. The apartment’s just as we left it. I was worried sick.”

“I went to Whale’s house.” Mary Margaret leans against the cool counter and prepares for the oncoming mockery.

“You what?”

“Yeah. He’s still asleep.”

“What happened? Don’t tell me you did more platonic bed-sharing.”

Whale appears in the doorway of the kitchen, his eyes sleepy, but lucid, better rested and more focused. Actually, a lot more focused. He leans in the doorway and smiles at her, with something in his manner that hasn’t been there in their past few interactions.

“Mary Margaret?” Emma asks, when she doesn’t get an answer. 

Mary Margaret clears her throat, praying her voice sounds normal, flippant--not just to Emma, but to Whale. “Actually, yes.”

Though it looks like things are about to change. Whale steps into Mary Margaret’s space, gripping the counter on either side of her so she’s trapped in a little circle of heat.

“You can’t be serious,” Emma continues, having no way of knowing what’s going on. 

“The nurses sent him home and told him to rest for a couple of days. I’m…” She stares helplessly into eyes that are suggesting something not at all restful. “I've been trying to make sure he does.”

Whale leans in and brushes his lips over her ear, over the one that isn’t on the phone. “Don’t go.”

“When are you coming home?” Emma asks.

“Please,” he whispers.

“Ummm,” Mary Margaret stalls, trying to keep her knees from shaking. There’s that word again. Please. Something that sounds more special for being so rare. His breath is warm on her face, gentle and questioning. “I don’t know yet.”

Whale kisses the top of her head. “Neither of us have anywhere to be...” 

“Maybe later this morning?” Emma suggests, and then interprets Mary Margaret’s soft moan of pleasure as Whale trails kisses down her neck as an affirmation. “Okay, what time?”

“No… Not this morning,” Mary Margaret finally decides, and is rewarded with a grin—a joyous one, a boyish one, not an ickily victorious one, which makes her feel a lot better about the decision. Now that she’s officially sanctioned this, his arm snakes around her waist and his body leans more firmly into her, friendly and insistent all at once.

Yes… yes, this is what she wants, she finally knows. Maybe she knew it last night, too, deep down. 

“Then when?” Emma presses.

“Tomorrow,” he whispers. “Give me until tomorrow.” 

“We’ll see,” Mary Margaret says firmly, with a hint of teasing, to both of them. “If he behaves himself, and if he… if he needs me to, I might stay until tomorrow. Otherwise, I’ll call you today and let you know when I’m on my way back.”

Emma chuckles. “Again, so weird, the two of you. I’ll talk to you later. Or tomorrow. Whatever. Have fun.”

“I think I will,” Mary Margaret says, and even before she’s properly hung up, Whale’s got her by the hand and is leading her downstairs.

This time, she loses her underwear somewhere on the stairs.


	5. Chapter 5

“I’m hungry,” she announces a couple of hours later. She’s draped over his expanse of skinny white torso. She used to think _she_ was pale, but… wow. Whale is practically translucent.

Anyway, given how easily he distracts her, she must not be that hungry after all.

*

The next time they come up for air, he switches on the TV. Mary Margaret would normally consider it rather rude, but she actually welcomes the happy din of the _The Today Show_. And anyway, they’ve been in bed for three hours ( _not_ counting the hours they were asleep before that); she likes thinking they’re past strict formalities at this point.

“I’ve always had the biggest crush on Matt Lauer,” she notes after a few minutes of mindless segments about fruit and travel.

Whale growls. “This is really something you want to talk about? Right this minute?”

“You’re the one who turned it on.”

“Just recuperating. Now let’s see if I can turn something else on.”

“Did you take a class? Is that how you learned to be this smarmy?” She groans even as she smiles, letting him roll on top of her again, feeling a rush she didn’t know she could feel so many times in a row.

“It’s been working, hasn’t it?”

“I think you’re giving the puns too much credit. They’re really terrible.”

But not so terrible that she stops him.

*

“This can’t be what the nurses meant when they told you to stay in bed today.”

“And I doubt it’s what the nuns had in mind when they told you to take some time off.”

Mary Margaret and Whale look at one another and dissolve into giggles. 

Their rumbling stomachs finally cajole them upstairs to the kitchen, where there’s nothing in the fridge but cold pizza and the dregs of a bottle of ruby red. He grabs the newspapers from the stoop and brings them in so they can read while they eat. Between the two of them, they only have one set of pajamas on---he’s shirtless and in scrubs, and she’s wearing nothing but panties and one of his oversized tee-shirts. 

Mary Margaret tries to pat her hair back into shape and out of the sex goddess tufts it’s currently in, but Whale’s arm reaches out to stop her.

“Don’t,” he says. “I like it like that.”

“You can’t possibly. I look crazy.”

“No, you look like you just had sex. With me. A lot. What’s not to like?” 

She never got to do this with David, she thinks. All the sneaking around, odd hours, quick meetings. They never had a chance to have a lazy morning like this: late breakfast, home-made coffee, passing the newspaper sections back and forth to share articles of interest, basking in the afterglow of hours and hours of sex. 

It’s nice. This. Whatever it is they're doing here. Whale isn’t her boyfriend, they’re not in love and this is just a random, one-time thing… but it’s nice. Which surprises her. _He_ surprises her. She would have expected him to be dismissive. Why should he care about yet another notch on his already studded belt? But for someone who’s apparently slept with the entirety of Storybrooke’s under-45 female contingent, Whale seems surprisingly pleased, not jaded or bored at all.

She’s gotten over her embarrassment of the couch enough to sprawl on it with him, her head in his lap and his hand absently combing through her hair. They watch a string of late morning game shows and pretend they’re real contestants, competing against one another to answer questions before the people on the TV. He wins (he’s staggeringly good at trivia), and his prize involves heading back downstairs to the bedroom (they don’t quite make it). 

The day slips by like that, easy and relaxing. They exhaust YouTube’s collection of Monty Python clips. Take a shower that transitions into a bubble bath, microwave pirogues that have been in his freezer for longer than either of them care to think about. Play a game of Rummy 500 that devolves into a physical fight over the Jack of Spades, rolling around the living room floor in an increasing state of undress…

They haven’t actually talked about what’s happening here, and she’s been afraid to mention it, in case it shatters the effortless perfection of the day, brings back his asshole self-protection mechanism and her case of the bashfuls. She hopes that by asking as nonchalantly as possible, she’ll get away with it.

“Why didn’t you make a move last night?” she asks after they’ve placed an order for barbeque delivery, a little too early for dinner, but a little too late for lunch.

“Too tired.”

It’s _such_ a douchey answer that she knows it isn’t the truth. “Really? That’s all?”

“No. Well, not all.” He shrugs. “I just… I was still trying to figure out what you were doing here. Didn’t want to push it in case I was wrong.”

“Okay, but what about me standing in the kitchen this morning talking to Emma said, ‘yep, definitely looking for sex’?”

He grins. “Nothing, actually. I was just less tired. Figured I’d give it a shot.”

She knows that’s a lie, too, even if she can’t articulate the exact truth behind his eyes. She gives up. “You’re very confusing.”

“Not really,” he says dispassionately, almost... surprised… that she’s brought this up in the first place. “This has been fairly straightforward, I thought.”

The doorbell rings; their food has arrived, and in the bustle of unpacking containers and setting the table, the conversation shifts.

*

She knows better but still can’t let it go.

“What did you mean?” she asks later, when they’ve long finished dinner, and are curled up in bed watching a random rerun of _Alias_ they’ve come across on cable. It’s Whale’s revenge for her Matt Lauer comment earlier, since he apparently has a thing for Jennifer Garner. 

The hour hand has been creeping towards bedtime, and thoughts of the next day begin to mar the fun. Even beyond work and home and the real world they’ve been cocooning themselves against all day, she’s now assailed by thoughts of what this means and whether or not it can happen again… the sort of clingy thoughts she doesn’t want to have, but sort of can’t help. It’s who she is. 

“Eh?” he absently replies. Jennifer Garner is kicking ass while wearing a rubber dress. Mary Margaret can almost forgive him for not paying attention to her question..

“When you said ‘this has been fairly straightforward’. What did you mean?”

He takes another huge bite of microwaved popcorn before answering, probably as a way of considering his response without _looking_ like he’s considering it, so as to maintain his cover as someone who doesn’t give a shit. 

(And no matter what his answer, she decides as she watches him chew, maybe it isn’t so bad that she’s going home in the morning; they’ve been eating like frat boys, and it’s disgusting.) 

“It’s obvious you’re just using me for sex,” he says, without taking his eyes off the TV. “And I’m entirely fine with that.”

It’s the last answer she expected. “Excuse me?”

“You ran into David last night before you came here, didn’t you? That’s why you’re here. You’re not with him, but you’re not yet ready to be with anyone else. But you also aren’t ready to be alone. I’m the obvious in-between answer, the temporary solution while you figure out what you want to do. Someone who doesn’t get serious, as a rule, and won't care when you either get back together with him or get over him and decide to be alone or date someone else or...” He waves his finger in a circle between their bodies, his eyes on Jennifer Garner all the while. “This only works because it doesn’t mean anything.”

Part of her wants to leave in a huff, but… he isn’t wrong. Still, the desperate romantic in her balks. No woman wants to hear that the man she’s currently in bed with feels nothing for her, even if the feeling is somewhat mutual. And really, who’s to say she doesn’t, or couldn’t, or _something_ later on? There’s little incentive now. No, she thinks, willing her limbs to relax again, this is fine. This is what she needs. After David, she wouldn’t want to be in a whole _thing_ with anyone, much less Whale.

No, he isn’t wrong.

Just to make matters more confusing, when the action sequence is over and the commercials start to blare, he looks down at her and kisses the top of her head. “Thank you, Mary Margaret.”

“For what?”

“This was a good day. We should… do this again sometime.”

She plays it cool, repeating a refrain of ‘this means nothing’ a few times in her head before she responds. By the time she does, the teasing archness in her voice is genuine. “For that to happen, you’d need to take another day off. Or, you know, a weekend.”

“Yeah, not gonna happen. So, there goes that, I guess.” He pauses, turning serious. “You gonna be okay going home tomorrow?”

She’s almost forgotten her fear, and even though it comes rushing back at his reminder, it’s not quite as bad as it was before coming here. 

“We’ll see.”

*

It isn’t like they’re trying to hide, but in order for him to make his shift and for her to be able to stop at home before school starts, they have to get up before six, and the streets are mostly empty.

She drops him off at Granny’s (the morning coffee is part of his routine), and can tell by looking through the glass that he’s almost the first patron. The only other person at the counter is August, and his excuse is that he lives upstairs. Plus, writers always keep odd hours, don’t they? 

He kisses her goodbye on the cheek, not bending down quite far enough, leaving her to make up the distance by going on tiptoes. There’s no one around to see.

“I’ll call you,” he says noncommittally, as though nothing at all has happened or changed, and he says it in pretty much the exact same tone of voice that he said it the first time they slept together, ages ago. He didn't call the last time, but he did send flowers, so... oh, _who cares_ , Mary Margaret silently screams at herself. 

“Okay,” she replies, her voice perfectly polite. "Have a good day, Whale."

"All that, and I still haven't been upgraded to Andrew?"

"No, not even close."

Emma’s home, and greets Mary Margaret a few minutes later with a perfectly arched eyebrow. “The prodigal roommate returns.”

“Okay. Let it out. Tease away.”

“No teasing. I’m glad to see you smiling. So… what happened? More platonic bed-sharing, or did you actually…”

“Is it still a one-night stand if it happens again?”

Emma smirks so firmly that some of the milk from her cereal dribbles down her chin, which produces long laughter from both of them. When they’ve calmed down, Emma answers, “I think so.”

Mary Margaret blushes as she asks her next question, which is still hypothetical, but based on something she's fairly confident will become reality. She knows him now; and she knows herself. “What if it happens a third time? And then a fourth? And then… you know. But without it being a relationship.”

“Personally, I’d call that ‘friends with benefits’. But I guess you could think of it as kind of a series of one night stands.” She pauses. "Is that what you want?"

"I'm too raw for anything else right now." What she thinks but doesn't say is that she finally sort of understands what Emma feels, the way Emma is with men, that wall she has. The past day has, oddly, made her feel closer to her friend... roommate... sister, almost. 

The doorbell rings. It’s August, carrying a beautiful toolbox.

“I was thinking about everything that’s been going on,” he explains. “People getting in here, planting false evidence. I’m good with locks and things. Figured I’d come over and help out.”

“You just… spontaneously thought we needed better security? At seven in the morning?” Emma asks, grateful, but confused. 

August nods, his eyes trying so hard not to drift meaningfully over to Mary Margaret. His answer appeases Emma (writers, always eccentric), but Mary Margaret thinks to where she left Whale a few minutes ago, chatting with August at Granny’s. She knows what’s up.

Yes, a ‘series’ is definitely what she’s going to call this.


	6. Chapter 6

For longer than she can remember, every day of Mary Margaret’s life was the same: school, groceries, grading papers, volunteering at the hospital, solitary TV. Even after Emma’s arrival, things didn’t shake up that much. Sheriffs and schoolteachers keep very different hours, and, for all the drama it caused, the sneaking around with David didn’t happen very often or for more than a couple of hours at a time.

Which is why, one morning, as Mary Margaret raises herself on tiptoes to kiss Whale goodbye, she is shocked to find how quickly and effortlessly she’s fallen into a new routine. The shift has happened so quickly that she hasn’t even noticed she’s off-balance. Or perhaps she’s simply righted herself. It’s hard to tell. 

“Do you need an umbrella?” he asks, knowing the answer is yes.

“Is it raining? Where are my shoes?”

To his credit, he doesn’t even sigh. “On the other side of the couch.”

Whale is almost her complete opposite in the morning; he gets out of bed exactly two minutes after the alarm goes off, has everything laid out to wear from the night before, and never, ever, has to run around like a lunatic looking for his keys or phone or socks or whatever random thing he needs in order to leave the house. 

He even manages to help her get prepped and ready (probably to prevent her from ruining his own morning routine). In exchange, she makes sure he eats like a human being and gets to bed at a decent hour, fighting his childish impulses to stay up late gorging on burritos and terrible zombie flicks.

They part ways at the bottom of his stoop. 

“I’ll call you,” she says awkwardly. One of them says it every time, instead of another form of goodbye. Today, it appears, is her turn.

“Yeah,” he replies, just as non-committally as he always does. And then he’s off, getting in his car to drive to the hospital. 

Mary Margaret has taken to packing a dress in her purse when she spends the night at Whale’s house, but she still stops at home to drop yesterday’s clothes off and grab some breakfast, since eating at Granny’s so many mornings these days doesn’t feel healthy.

The apartment is empty. Emma’s been working hard with August and Gold, trying to find legal loopholes to wrangle custody of Henry away from Regina. When their schedules collide in the apartment, Emma and Mary Margaret mostly check in on the progress of Emma’s legal project, and her efforts to pin the frame-job on Regina. Emma has so much going on that Mary Margaret can tell her job as a friend is to be the rock, the listener. She isn’t keeping secrets, not at all, but she isn’t sure whether Emma’s actually caught on to the fact that Mary Margaret is rarely home these days, and when she is, she usually has company. 

It’s a ‘friends with benefits’ thing, just as Emma predicted. Mary Margaret’s never been involved in anything like it before, and the newness of it is exhilarating. They never plan their evenings more than a few hours before hand, and it’s always just a sleepover, not a date. The lack of expectations between them doesn’t need to be spelled out to be clear. Whale seems to think it’s only viable as long as she’s in her ‘getting over David’ phase, but knowing his reputation, Mary Margaret has a feeling his interest will prove more fleeting than her own. This is a temporary arrangement to be cancelled whenever either party decides to be over it.

That night, when she gets home, all of Emma’s things are strewn all over the living room, half in suitcases and half just on the floor. But Emma is nowhere to be found, and Mary Margaret can’t imagine where she could be going so suddenly that would warrant this much luggage. 

Just as she’s wondering what’s going on, her phone rings. The caller ID displays the hospital’s main phone number. Whale never calls her from the office phones. 

“It’s me,” he says. It’s only two words, but she knows him well enough by now to hear that he’s got his doctor voice on; this isn’t a personal call.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

“It’s Henry. He’s in some kind of coma.”

“Oh god.” Mary Margaret looks around her ransacked-looking apartment. “Is Emma there?”

“That’s the thing. She and Regina got into some kind of brawl in the utility closet and then ran outta here. No mention of when they’d be back, and neither of them are answering their phones. I was wondering if you knew where…”

“No, I haven’t heard from her at all. I had no idea. What happened to him?”

She notices the pause before he answers, not answering. “Are you busy right now? It’d be great if you could come down… for Henry.”

Mary Margaret’s already grabbed her purse and keys and coat. “I’m on my way.”

As she runs out of the house and down the street, she wonders how much of his request is about Henry, and how much of it is for his own comfort. She could hear the anger in his voice, the impotent rage of confusion. Whale’s arrogance is perfectly warranted in the hospital; he’s a damn good doctor, and there’s nothing he hates more than failing a patient. Unfortunately, Storybrooke has recently become a place of medical mysteries, so these days he’s been stumped more often than he likes.

Her car’s still at Granny’s, where she left it a couple of days ago. She’s walking briskly, her mind full of Henry and Emma and Whale, in a jumble of affection and concern. Of course, it’s at this moment that David Nolan appears beside her, for the first time in weeks. He’s peddling a heartbreakingly genuine apology, straight-forward declarations of love, plus something about an apartment in Boston and wanting a reason to stay in Storybrooke… 

It’s an enormously romantic gesture, but coming after almost three weeks of radio silence between them, it seems not only too little, too late, but also somewhat random. What they had was beautiful, but as she listens to him, she now knows that what she has these days--- laughter, easy-going good times, friends---well, it might not be the stuff of fairytales, but she actually thinks she might be happier.

So, there isn’t much to say except ‘no’, making it a short conversation. She feels more impatient than sad as she gets into her car, leaving him standing on the street. With Henry in a coma, Emma missing and Whale needing her, dealing with last-ditch ultimatums from David is low on her priority list. 

It’s really over, she realizes as she drives. She’s been so happily distracted recently that she didn’t even notice. 

When she gets to the hospital, the nurses are all speaking in hushed whispers. Poor Henry looks small and unnaturally white against the sheets. Mary Margaret kisses him on the forehead, gets the background from the attendants, and then goes to find Whale. She finds him hiding in his office, hunched so far that his head is almost between his knees as he sits. A dossier hangs uselessly from his hands, which are covering his face. He doesn’t look up when he hears the door open, and jumps when she bends over to touch his thigh.

“Hey,” she says, as she pulls up a chair to sit in front of him, so close that their knees touch.

The tension between his eyebrows lessens somewhat, and he shifts in his seat to bury his face in her shoulder. Mary Margaret puts her arms around him.

“How bad is it?” she asks.

“It doesn’t make any sense. It’s like all his organs decided to go on vacation, but they left a tiny, low-watt night-light on. Technically, he’s dead, except for the fact that he isn’t.”

“Which means there’s still hope.”

“I don’t know. Emma was convinced he ate some poisoned dessert, but… Nothing.” He takes her hand and drags it up to his face to kiss it. “Thanks for getting here so fast. They both just… left, and if anything happens…” 

“I can’t imagine where Emma could be. And with Regina. _That’s_ what doesn’t make any sense.” The words are true but automatic; but what she’s really thinking about, getting annoyed about, is the fact that talking to David prevented her from getting here even faster. Henry’s dying, Emma’s missing, and poor Whale has barely been keeping it together. 

“They came back for a minute. While you were on your way here.”

“They did? Where are they now?”

Whale shrugs. “Ran off again.”

“I think Emma was going to leave town,” Mary Margaret muses, unrelatedly. She ignored it before, when she was at home, but it’s obvious.

Whale picks his head up off her shoulder at the spacy tone of her voice. “Are you okay? You seem…” His fingers massage the palms of her hand. “Tense. About Henry, but something else, too.”

Mary Margaret takes stock of her body, and consciously relaxes her muscles, willing away any lingering tetchiness from her encounter. Whale rarely pesters her, but he knows when ‘nothing’ means anything but; so, she might as well come clean with him. Plus, he’s under too much strain right now to add to it by telling lies he’ll see though.

“David stopped me on the way here. He said he was moving to Boston, tomorrow, unless I gave him a reason not to.”

“Oh.” Whale sits straight up, startled and distracted out of his depression. He gently lets go of her hand. “Right. Of course.”

This isn’t the reaction she expected. “Of course?” 

Coldly, and looking at the floor, he explains, “Two weeks is usually how long it takes women to get through the ‘I just want sex’ period and either realize they want to ‘be on their own for awhile’ or else realize they want to get back together with the other guy. You’re actually way behind schedule. I’ve been expecting this for---”

“Stop it,” Mary Margaret interrupts, exhausted, unconsciously speaking to him in her teacher voice. It’s ridiculous that he still does this with her; he has to know she can see right through it, that even through his dress shoes she can see the way his toes tap when he’s lying.

“Guess I’ve got more organized mornings in my future.”

He’s trying pitifully hard to be flippant, but the outside strain of Henry’s condition is causing him to do a poor job.

“I told him no, Andy,” she whispers.

It’s the first time she’s ever called him by his first name, and he notices, his giant blue eyes popping even wider. “Oh.”

“Exactly. It’s over. I think… it’s been over for a while. I just didn’t realize it until now.”

“I see. So you want to be alone then.”

“I thought you told me you graduated top of your med school class. Aren’t you supposed to be smart?” She shakes her head, because the point of telling him was to avoid this drama, not create it. “Anyway, this doesn’t matter. What matters is Henry. How can I help?” 

“You can’t,” he says stubbornly.

“I can sit with him while you take a nap. You look like you need one. The nurses and I will call you if anything happens.”

She doesn’t give him a chance to talk back. She just gets up and goes to Henry’s bedside. His personal effects are on the neighboring bed. Mary Margaret finds the storybook she gave him so long ago. She settles in beside Henry and opens to the first story in the book---a beautifully illustrated, but slightly original take on the Red Riding Hood tale. By the end of it, she feels a bit calmer, even though Henry is too unconscious to register anything.

About an hour later, she takes a break to go to the bathroom. She finds Whale standing at the entrance of the room, having been listening to her with a heavy-lidded, reflective look on his face.

“I thought I told you to take a nap,” she scolds as she walks past him.

“I’m not tired. Hey,” he says, following at her heels.

“What?”

“It’s been awhile since I watched you do that. Read to patients.”

“I didn’t know you used to watch me.”

“All the time.”

“What do you want, Dr. Whale?” she asks at the doorway to the bathroom. “You’re acting strange. Stranger than usual.”

“I was just wondering… When all this is over, and Henry’s better… Maybe the next time we have sex, I could take you out to dinner first. If you’re into that.”

“Into which?” she asks coyly. He’s being hilariously transparent. “The food or the sex?”

“Both?”

She laughs and pulls him in close. “If you want to go out with me, you’re going to need to ask, not just imply it.”

“If you’re really done with David, the arrangement we had before is no longer tenable.”

“So…” she says, forcing him to say it.

“So, I guess we should date.” He coughs, and says in a softer voice, “I would like for this to keep going, for real.”

Lame as it is, Mary Margaret can tell he’s being genuine, and more importantly, in this case, this less romantic story might have a better chance of functioning than storybook romance did. So, she relents, and gives him an easy answer. “Just not at Granny’s, okay? Let’s start this one fresh.”

“Of course.”

He kisses her, and already, it’s different from how it’s been before. A little deeper, a little longer, with a little more of a hug. “I’m not very good at this, just fyi.”

“Lucky for you, I am good enough for both of us. At least, I think I am.”

He smiles at that, and kisses her again. “I’m going to check on Henry.”

“And then you’ll take that nap?”

“Yes.”

When she goes back to Henry’s bedside, Mary Margaret knows exactly what she wants to read. She’s been avoiding the Snow White story, knowing what the tale has always meant---however irrationally---to Henry. But now, she’s able to read it with a mostly straight face and steady voice. When she gets to the end, she finds herself crying, but not because of any imaginary tie to how things truly ended with David. 

“Henry,” she says. “When I gave you this book, it was because I knew… I know life doesn’t always have a happy ending.”

She’s about to continue, to tell him that life doesn’t stop with the happy endings in the stories, that it keeps going, hits dips, and then finds a different happy ending. That there are lots of endings in the stories, and sometimes the good ones end badly, and the bad ones end well. Not that he can hear, and even if he could, he’s too young to understand---hell, until a few minutes ago, she herself was too young to understand---but it still needs to be said. She needs to say it as a way of continuing the belief that his condition, which right now seems hopeless, may take a turn for the better. She’s trying to tell him as a way of explaining why she’s crying. 

But she doesn’t get a chance, because the machines go into overdrive, signaling a crisis. Henry doesn’t look any different, but _something_ is wrong.

“Dr. Whale!” she calls. She staggers to the door, the beeping throwing her off-balance. “Someone, help!”

Whale and two nurses come running. Mary Margaret is paralyzed watching them get to work, pulling out equipment and barking orders at one another. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Whale sees her standing and crying. “Get her out of here!” he yells, in full doctor voice, not her… boyfriend… at all. In response, strong arms drag her backwards. Whose, Mary Margaret has no idea. 

She finds herself in the lobby again, lost and dizzy. Her fingers tremble as she pulls out her phone and pointlessly tries to call Emma. Wherever she is, Emma doesn’t want to be found. Mary Margaret has to assume she knows what she’s doing, that she’s trying to help Henry somehow.

She watches through the glass as Whale and the nurses do everything that’s medically possible to help him. She doesn’t understand half of what they’re doing, but she can tell it isn’t working. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees something odd. The fact that he’s wearing a white lab coat is actually more note-worthy than the fact that he’s familiar; Whale is the only doctor she’s ever seen around here, so a second one is startling. Beside the man she’s staring at is a patient with heavily tousled hair and a blank, confused expression. 

It’s the man who kidnapped her and Emma. It’s the psychopath who made her afraid to be alone in her house until Whale comforted her out of it. It’s Jefferson.

She watches, paralyzed and open-mouthed, as he leads this young woman through the halls, as though he belongs there. He stops short at one point, and stares through the glass that separates the hallway from Henry’s room.

“What’s wrong?” the woman asks.

Jefferson presses his face and hands against the glass. “It’s Victor!” he says, staring directly at Whale. “What the hell is he doing here?”

“Who?” the girl asks. 

Jefferson peels himself from the glass and looks back at her. “Nothing. Just… just an old friend I never thought I’d see again.”

Mary Margaret gasps at this. Jefferson and Whale? Old friends? 

Then she remembers that the man’s _insane_.

Not to mention that Whale’s first name is Andrew, not Victor. 

Jefferson catches Mary Margaret staring and flashes her an ironical smile. “Your majesty,” he says with a bow as he passes her.

Yep. _Crazy._

She can’t let this criminal go free, but Emma’s missing and Whale is busy. There’s no one she can ask for help. If she goes after him, she’ll have to do it alone.

It’s a split-second decision, but she goes for it, leaving a quick voicemail on Whale’s cell phone as she discreetly tails the pair out of the hospital.

“You’re working on Henry right now, but I just wanted someone to know where I am. Jefferson’s here, dressed like a doctor, and letting someone out of the hospital. Pretty girl, long, tangled brown hair, blue eyes, shorter than me. I’m going after them. I’ll call you when I know more. And we can figure out where we want to go for dinner. You can do this. You're the best doctor I've ever known. I have faith in you.”

She follows them as far as Gold’s Pawn Shop, but they seem to split up afterwards. For a moment, Mary Margaret wonders if she should stay with the girl, but ultimately, Jefferson is her target. She hides behind a fence and lets him get a bit in front of her before continuing in her pursuit. 

Within a couple of blocks, she’s lost him. 

After half an hour of fruitless walking in every direction, she gives up and starts walking back to the hospital. She wonders if Emma will be back by then, how Henry’s doing. If Whale can save him.

And that’s when it hits her. A rush of memories that at first seems like a wave of insanity. Flashes of images, mostly in the woods, with longer hair and a father who loved her, and Ruby with a long red cape, and having a baby, and living with dwarves, and…

“Charming.”


End file.
